I love superhero movies, with their origin stories and training montages, and this year I’ve enjoyed introducing my kids to the Marvel cinematic universe through Ant-Man. If you’re horrified that I let my six-year-old watch Ant-Man, I receive that. When your oldest is 11, these things happen, especially if you’re me and need the fairy wings cartoons and tween laugh tracks to go away.
The first time I saw Ant-Man, like many of you, I spent the movie mad-glad, mad because Hope Pym could soooo be Ant-Man and the gymnastics floor routine they had to flip through to try to make us believe Paul Rudd was the better choice made me want to do this:
But also glad because A SUIT THAT SHRINKS! PRESS THE BUTTON, PAUL RUDD! PRESS IT! SEE WHAT IT DOES!
Do you ever feel like your life is a training montage from Ant-Man? You’re figuring out how to work your new equipment, taking punches, but getting stronger. Over time, with enough practice, you’ll figure out how to balance everything shrink through a keyhole and land on your feet.
During my first meeting at my kids’ school, I was woefully unprepared. I thought it would be a darling kumbaya where we all put our brains together to figure out how to help my child. How adorable of me. I discovered that I had a lot of work to do to educate myself about the process. I’m currently in my training montage phase, learning how to sweep the leg and command an army of fire ants.
Maybe like me you’re trying to learn how to be your child’s best advocate, or maybe you’ve just had a baby and you’re figuring out if you’ll ever get to sleep again for the rest of your life. Maybe you’re training to LEAVE THE HOUSE FOR THE FIRST TIME. Big step. This requires a 40-lb. diaper bag, snap together carseat-stroller apparatus, enough wrappings to mummify King Tut himself, and loaves and fishes to feed 5,000.
Cute training montage music.
In the great words of Chumbawamba, “I get knocked down, but I get up again. You’re never going to keep me down.”
And eventually, you can saddle up and make it look easy non-life-threatening.
Along the way during your training, your friends are your biggest cheerleaders and keep you going. They pump you up, get you out of the house, and give you the courage you need to take this thing by the balls.
Your fourth-basers remind you of what’s important and why you’re pumping up in the first place. It’s for the money kids world peace world domination continuation of the species. Love. It’s totes for love.
Eventually after you’ve pounded your punching bag about a million times, taped your hands like a boxer, or maybe printed out articles and made a binder or pumped breastmilk and stocked your van with disposable baggies that smell like potpourri, you’re ready to face your Yellow Jacket.
Ka-blammy. You survived the meeting or the playdate or your baby Hailing Hydra in the middle of Target.
After all the hard training, you feel tired but also like a fine-tuned Mercedes mama, like you can take on the whole world. You let yourself feel a moment of victory.
You trained hard and survived the first test of your new powers. Tomorrow is another battle and you ripped a hole in your suit so the training never stops. But for today, victory is yours.
Good work, mama. You’re a superhero.
